I Kill People Dear
by HopelessOwls
Summary: Zuko never left Ba Sing Se after fleeing there with Uncle Iroh. He never joined Aang. Instead, he became an assassin. But when he is forced to seek out the Avatar's help, he must change his life, or risk losing everything, And in the process, discovers more about himself than he ever thought he would and finds the most unlikely friends...and maybe one more than friend. Zutara.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So I'm probably really stupid for starting a new serious story without having finished my other one (that will get done eventually) but I don't care. This has been on my brain for like ever and I wanted to finally publish it. Hopefully I won't have as many issues with it as I do with the other one. (Sigh) But yeah, I decided to write this because I have seen so many stories where Katara is an assassin (which I do like) but I don't think I've ever seen one where Zuko is. So here is one. Anyway, this chapter is mostly background, sort of a next one is where things start getting fun. And because it isn't mentioned yet, this story is set a maybe three or four years after season 2. It assumes that Azula never found Zuko in Ba Sing Se, Aang and the others never found him there, and that Zuko never joined them. So yeah, Katara and Zuko never had their moment in the Catacombs and the GAang hasn't seen Zuko since early season 2. But they will soon(; Hope you like it and please review! **

**Rated M for sexual content and mature themes.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender**

* * *

Zuko crouched, waiting, watching the man weave through the crowded streets. Zuko shifted his weight slightly, stone tiles crunching under his feet. The man was walking fast, like he was in a hurry to get somewhere, though he wasn't. He was just nervous, frightened. After all, most people would be if they thought a shadow was stalking them.

Zuko rolled his weight to the balls of his feet and jumped forward, hands catching the gutters of a house. He heaved himself onto the green tiled roof and moved silently across it, keeping the man in his view. He was easy to spot in the crowd with his bright red hair standing out so fantastically against the black of everyone else's.

Zuko had been following this man for three days. He had his schedule memorized, knew exactly what this man did and how he did it, knew what he was going to do before he even did it. He knew what kind of tea he took and what kind of women pleased him. And now he was going to use that information to his advantage.

The man ducked into an alleyway and out of Zuko's sight. He rolled down the roof and onto the hard ground, dust rising in clouds around his feet. Zuko moved forward silently, reaching behind him and touching the hilt of Dao swords, a habit he had developed, like he needed to make sure they were still there. He slid into the alleyway, unnoticed by the man who was too busy panting from his quick walk and nervous energy. He was holding a brown package in one hand and a bag was on the ground next to his feet, dropped there when the man felt he was safe enough to be still.

Zuko walked silently up behind the man and pulled out his swords, a soft zing the only sound he made. The man didn't notice, his heavy breathing blocking out everything else. Zuko took one of his swords and pressed it against the man's throat, cutting across it before he could even register what happened, the other sinking into the man's back.

Zuko watched the man slowly fall to his knees, and then topple over to land face first in the dust, blood gushing from the grotesque smile in his neck. Zuko ripped a piece of cloth from the dead man's shirt and used it to clean the red stain from his blades.

He crossed his blades behind his back and sheathed them, but not before he caught a glimpse of his grinning blue mask in the shining metal.

* * *

"Did you do it?" the heavyset man asked him in a harsh voice.

"Yes."

"No one saw you?"

"Yes."

"Did you get it?"

"Yes."

"Put it on the desk," he said, nodding.

Zuko stepped forward and gently laid the wooden box on Sho Tin's desk. He allowed his fingers to brush the smooth and shiny grain for just a moment, before stepping back again.

"Here," the man grunted, shoving a bulging bag at Zuko. Zuko's quick fingers snatched it up and he loosened the tie so that he could look inside. A bundle of gold coins glinted in the weak light and Zuko smirked, unseen under his mask. "Now, get out," he man continued, leaning back in his chair, stressed wood groaning under his weight. "I don't need any of my other clients seeing that creepy mask."

Zuko didn't answer. He turned and walked away, ducking under the curtain that separated Sho Tin's office from the rest of the building. Zuko wrinkled his nose at the smell of the building proper. It smelled like sweat and rum and mold. It was no wonder Sho Tin kept so many fragrant candles burning in his office.

Zuko walked close to the wall, sticking to the shadows. He hated this place. It was full of powerful men who didn't know how to spend their money and poor women who couldn't find coins anywhere else. Most people believe this place was just another brothel, but Zuko and a few select others were privy to it's even more disturbing and dark foundation.

When Zuko finally escaped the god awful place, he sucked in a breath of fresh air and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He stretched and rolled his shoulders before ducking into the alleyway behind the brothel, ignoring the smell of garbage and the squeaking of mice. He pulled off his mask and pushed his hood down, running a hand through sweaty hair. He stripped off the rest of his black clothes and pulled on a different shirt, stuffing the dirty clothes into a bag he stowed behind the building. Slinging it over his shoulder, he walked back out into the street and in the direction of his apartment.

* * *

Zuko could remember exactly how it started. He had come to Ba Sing Se with his uncle as a fugitive. He worked in his uncle's tea shop and shared an apartment with him for the longest time. He acted as a waiter and made tea for customers. Everything had been fine, or as fine as it could be for a fugitive running from his own family. But then Zuko's uncle was revealed as a firebender and arrested. Zuko had tried to help him, tried to lie for him, but his uncle refused. Iroh told the Dai Li that Zuko was just a boy he had met and befriended on the road, someone he looked after. He told them Zuko knew nothing of his firebending and Zuko was spared. Iroh had, of course, escaped and before he left Ba Sing Se, he had told Zuko to not look for him and that he needed to find his own path. Zuko, wanting nothing more than to be with his uncle, but knowing he was right, stayed in Ba Sing Se.

Finding a job was harder than Zuko would have thought. It certainly gave him a new respect for the working class. Without his uncle around to give him a job, Zuko had to rely on his own talents. But, the thing was, he didn't have many outside of fighting and firebending. He was a good fighter and he could strategize, could wield flames as easily as he could breath, but those kinds of skills didn't really come in handy when one was trying to get a job at a shop.

So Zuko had ended up on the street again, begging for money and when he got none, stealing food and whatever else he needed. And eventually, he got caught. He had been arrested and left to rot in a jail cell.

And then he had been called upon. Sho Tin had heard of him through one of the Dai Li officers who had been complaining about having to chase Zuko down and his skill at thievery. Sho Tin had offered Zuko a way out of jail and a way out of poverty and Zuko, staving, beaten down, and lonely had agreed without even hearing what Sho Tin was telling him. Before he knew it, Zuko had become a part of an elite assassination group known as the Wraith.

Zuko was paid to kill, to slaughter, sometimes because the men he killed had some kind of important item on them that someone wanted or information about whatever or sometimes just because someone had a vendetta against them. Zuko learned pretty fast to not ask questions, just do what needed to be done and get what needed to be gotten and get out of there before he was caught.

He was a good fighter and was good at stealth and was a great assassin. He soon became one of the top killers in the Wraith, so popular he was even_ requested_ by clients. He made money from his "work" and rented a small and dingy apartment in the Lower Ring and even managed to find a job at a tea shop through one of Sho Tin's endless connections. He lived quietly, keeping his head down and out of the way. He learned to not be cocky and not get caught. He learned to follow the unspoken rules of Ba Sing Se and to stay out of the Dai Li's way. For two years Zuko lived in his crappy apartment, working a crappy job in an awful tea shop, and doing even worse things when no one was looking.

The only good thing in his life was that hardly anyone in the Wraith knew who he was. As far as he knew Sho Tin was the only member to have seen his face. Any other time he was on the clock for them, he wasn't Zuko – he was the Blue Spirit. That was how he was known in the Wraith. In fact, he was almost legend. More than once he had caught younger members, those sucked in through family connections or those who just wanted the power than came with membership, talking about him in awed, hushed tones.

Zuko wasn't proud of it.

* * *

Zuko shoved open the door to his apartment. The hinges groaned like they always did and he shut it firmly behind him, dropping his bag on the ground next to the couch and collapsing onto the springy cushions.

Zuko crossed both arms over his eyes and sighed. He hated working for the Wraith, though he would never let that be known. When he joined, he hadn't known what he was getting himself into. He hadn't even really registered what he would have to do. He had been caught up in the excitement, high on the idea of comfortable living. He hadn't known that working for the Wraith wasn't something he could do for a year and quit. He hadn't known he had as good as signed his soul away.

Over the past two years, Zuko killed 23 people. People who had families and children; people who had _futures_, which Zuko kindly robbed them off because they had a gold pin someone wanted or because they fucked someone's girlfriend.

It wasn't just what Zuko did that he hated; it was knowing that this was not the life his uncle wanted for him. He knew that Uncle Iroh had meant for Zuko to change, to become a new and better man, not to become something worse than he already was. His uncle didn't want him to become someone his father would be proud of. That was what really bothered him and made him wish that when Sho Tin showed up and offered him something Zuko couldn't resist, he had listened to his brain and said no.

Zuko rubbed his eyes and stared at the peeling paint on his walls. It was always like this after a job. He always thought about what his life could have been if he had just tried to stay good, if he had tried to be an honorable man. He thought about the mistakes he made in life and he thought about what his uncle would say if he knew what Zuko's life was like. Most of all, he thought about what his father would say.

Zuko shook his head and got up. There was no use dwelling on the past; he couldn't change anything. Zuko walked into his cupboard sized kitchen and pulled out his old teapot and started boiling some water. One thing Zuko could not figure out about his life was how he could work in a tea shop for years and still make tea that made him shudder.

He got his cup and sat back down on the couch, getting comfortable. He cast his eyes around the small living room, taking in the battered furniture and peeling walls. It wasn't a nice apartment, but it was his. He had the money to upgrade to a nicer one, even one in the Upper Ring if he liked, but he never would. It was easier to stay low when he was surrounded by other shady characters like himself.

For a long time, Zuko just sat there, drinking the awful tea and thinking about meaningless things. But eventually he got up, put his tea cup away and went to bed, just like he did every night.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks for all the reviews guys(: Hope you like this chapter and please review!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender**

* * *

"No, please! Don't kill me! I-I'll give you whatever you want!"

Zuko stood above this terrified man, watching him grovel at his feet. He truly looked pathetic, with greasy hair and dirty, expensive robes that were ripped at the knees. Tears streaked down his ruddy face, and he twisted his hands as she stared up at Zuko, his eyes round and horrified. Zuko felt no sympathy for him. No shame, no remorse, no anticipation. No nothing. He looked down at the man he was about to kill with no more interest than he would a bug he was about to step on.

Zuko raised his sword and swiped it across the man's neck, opening his throat and watching dark blood spill down his chest and onto the ground. The man fell forward, face first, and slumped to the ground, blood pooling around him, smearing onto Zuko's boots.

Zuko wiped his sword on the man's robes and stuck it and its twin in the sheath that hung on his back. He stepped out of the alley he had been hidden in and looked around, sweeping his gaze over the dirty cobblestone street. There was nobody on the street, not that Zuko had really expected to see anyone. It was pouring rain and it was early morning; the sun had not fully risen yet, but Zuko could see golden light peeking over the wall of Ba Sing Se, feel the energy beginning to pulse through his veins. Morning would come soon, and with it, people going out to work the fields beyond the wall, or into the mines.

Zuko ducked back into the alley and climbed up the wall and on a roof, keeping his movements light and quick, so not to announce his presence to anybody sleeping below. Zuko looked down at the body he had left in the alley. The blood had stopped gushing out his open neck, instead it was trickling out, mixing with the mud forming in the rain. He would be found soon, by a random passerby who just happened to look in the street. For the rest of the day, everybody in the near vicinity would be talking about the dead man found in the street, revel in the mystery of it.

Zuko jumped from roof to roof until he was far enough away, until he could no longer see the alley he had left the man's body in. He set his feet back on the ground when the sun fully came up, grey light filtering through the heavy rain, and headed towards Sho Tin's place, pulling his hood over his head and ducking his head down so that anybody who walked by couldn't see his mask.

When he reached the brothel, he paused, narrowing his eyes behind the mask. All the lights were off, which alone wasn't normal; Sho Tin had the place open all day and night. Zuko reached behind him to brush his fingers against the hilt of his sword. He was about to walk forward and push the brothel's door open, when sudden voices stopped him in his tracks. Zuko ducked around a wall and Zuko crouched, watching four people walk through the rain and stop in front of the door. He could just barely hear their voices over the pounding of the rain, couldn't see their faces at all through the grey sleet between them.

"We shouldn't go in there," a soft female voice said, just a whisper through the rain. Zuko tried to identify who out of the four was saying it and eventually decided on the short woman who was waving her arms at the sign on the building. Her voice sounded familiar but Zuko couldn't place it. He frowned, listening harder, trying to discern more of the conversation.

"Why not?" a deep voice asked. Zuko guessed it was the tall man standing next to the woman, taller than she was, by at least a full head.

"Because it's a brothel!" she replied, throwing her arms in the air. Zuko couldn't really tell, but he guess it was exasperation he heard in her voice.

"How can you tell?" another male voice asked, this one higher than the first and cracking. _Young, going through puberty_, Zuko absently thought. Zuko's eyes landed on the lanky figure next to the woman, standing closer than a friend probably should.

"The lanterns," the woman's voice said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Zuko almost cracked a grin at her tone, liking the way she crossed her arms over her chest and, Zuko supposed, glared in a superior way.

"Well, fine. Let's go find somewhere else. I'm cold, and I want to get out of the rain," another female voice asked, higher than the first. The fourth person, the one who had been quiet. She was standing next to the man with the higher voice, shorter than him.

All four of them appeared to agree and Zuko watched them walk away, and he quickly lost sight of them through the rain. He frowned under his mask, watching the place where they had been standing and talking. Something about those people was familiar but Zuko couldn't remember. He hadn't seen or heard them well enough to make out their faces or properly hear their voices; if he had, he was sure he could've placed them.

Zuko decided to forget about them. Honestly, they could be anybody. There were a lot of people in the Lower Ring and everyday there were more. Refugees still flooded into Ba Sing Se, the only place other than the Northern Water Tribe to be completely safe from the Fire Nation. It was highly possible Zuko had met those people while serving tea or maybe he just heard them talking in the street one day. Either way, they weren't important.

Zuko turned into the alley behind the brothel. He pressed open the door only "employees" knew about, not wanting to make an entrance and be seen by whoever was in there. Zuko could feel something off about the place; it was quiet outside the building for one, which never happened. There was something wrong, and with his body tense, Zuko prepared himself.

He quietly entered the room and immediately wished he could clap a hand over his mouth and nose or at least wishing his mask could muffle the smell. He wrinkled his nose, breathing out of his mouth; the smell of the place was atrocious, worse than it usually was.

Zuko paused, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. As his eyes gradually took in the scene, he stared around the place, his face under the mask paler than usual and his golden eyes wide with horror.

There were bodies and blood everywhere. Men and women alike were strewn across the floor, dried blood covering them and the floor around them. There were several severed limbs mingled with the bodies, blood and gore speckling the ground around them.

Zuko felt sick. He didn't know any of these people, but he assumed they were customers of the brothel. He didn't care to know any of them, but just the fact that so many were dead, the fact that so many had been killed for apparently nothing, disturbed him. That, and the cloying smell of blood and rotten bodies.

Zuko carefully picked his way around the carnage, heading towards the back rooms where Sho Tin conducted his after-hours business. This would be about the Wraith; nobody would come to a brothel and kill everyone in sight just because they couldn't stand the moral repugnance of prostitution. No, whatever this was about, it was about the less pleasant side of Sho Tin's business dealings.

Zuko pushed the door of Sho Tin's office open, wondering if he would find the fat man slumped over his desk, facedown in a pool of his own blood. He had to admit he wouldn't be upset by the scene.

Zuko didn't. Instead he found Sho Tin sitting at his desk, leaning back in his chair like it was any other day and there weren't fifty mangled dead bodies just outside the door. Sho Tin looked up and saw Zuko standing there. He sighed tiredly and waved a hand at him. "Close the door behind you."

Zuko did, grateful the smell wasn't as strong in the office as it was in the midst of the massacre. He sat down in the hard chair in front of the large mahogany desk. Sho Tin looked at him without saying anything for a moment, before sighing again.

"It was Jen."

"Why?" Zuko asked, his voice slightly muffled by the wood and cloth in front of his mouth.

"I have no idea. I found him standing the middle of that pile of bodies, laughing like a maniac." Sho Tin tapped his fingers against his desk, frowning down at the wood. He looked upset, more than anything; probably less about the death of all those people, and more about the loss of money because of it.

"He didn't say why?" Zuko raised an eyebrow, unseen by Sho Tin.

"No," Sho Tin muttered. "He just said he killed them all and then he stabbed himself in the stomach."

Zuko frowned. Jen was a new addition to the Wraith's ring of assassins. Zuko had met him once; he had seemed normal, if a little on the nervous side. Zuko remembered thinking the boy didn't have the stomach or the nerves to kill people in cold blood. Ironic, now, after what the boy had done.

"What are you going to do about it?" Zuko knew they had to clean this up before the Dai Li showed up. They would take care of the bodies, but they would dig deep enough into the mystery of the murders of those innocent people and somehow find out about the Wraith – and Zuko would find himself behind bars again.

"We have to burn the place down. Make it seem like just an innocent fire that got out of control and that all those people died in an accident," Sho Tin said gravely.

"Now?"

"I've already moved everything of importance. I was just waiting for you to show up."

Zuko stood up and Sho Tin followed suit. Zuko walked out of the office, nose wrinkling again. He strode to the middle of the room while Sho Tin walked out of the back door, holding his jacket over his face. Zuko took a firebending stance and started shooting fireballs at the flammable things in the rooms; curtains, tablecloths, the bodies themselves. Soon the entire room was alight and Zuko couldn't see anything because of the smoke. It didn't bother him; fire was his element and he wasn't afraid of it, not anymore.

Zuko made his way out of the building and found Sho Tin watching the fire's progress. Flames licked at the sides of the alley and part of the roof had already caved in.

"What are you going to do now that headquarters is gone?" Zuko asked quietly after a couple minutes of watching the building submit to the fire.

Sho Tin shrugged his heavyset shoulders. "I find another place. It won't take long. You finished the job tonight, right?"

Zuko nodded slowly.

"You'll have to wait for payment. And I have another job for you now."

Zuko would've raised an eyebrow at him if Sho Tin could see it. He didn't normally get jobs that quickly; usually he had at least a week in between, if not more. Instead, he chose to say nothing.

"Jen did not want me dead," Sho Tin continued. "I do not know why, but he wanted me to be kept alive and he conveniently chose to attack the building when I wasn't there and made no move against me when I showed up. The boy wasn't unhinged, at least, not until the very end. I think someone else is behind this."

He paused and Zuko waited for him to continue. Sho Tin had more to say; his pause was nothing more than dramatic effect – something he always did and something that always got on Zuko's nerves.

Sho Tin sighed and watched the burning building. "Something was stolen from my office. Not by Jen – I searched his body. This attack was just a cover for the theft."

Zuko frowned. What a needless waste of life. Covering a theft with murder of dozens of people, especially when the theft did not even go unnoticed. But it did make sense, and it was smart. Only someone as paranoid as Sho Tin would search his office after a massacre. Nobody else would have thought to.

Zuko turned his attention back to the fire and glared at it. "What do you want me to do?" he asked, not letting a hint of his resignation into his voice.

"I want you to find out who the thief was and get back what was stolen."

"What was taken?"

"The box you retrieved on the last job."

"When I find the thief, do you want me to kill him?"

"No." Sho Tin grinned without humor. "I want you to bring him back to me."

* * *

Zuko lay on his back, unable to sleep. His scratchy blanket was wrapped around his legs and his mattress creaked as he shifted his weight. He glanced out through his window, narrowing his eyes at the moon. Zuko had been lying in bed for hours, tired, but still unable to keep his eyes closed.

He thought about what had led him to this point. Two years ago, he would have never thought he would end up an assassin, someone who could consider killing a man with hardly any emotion.

Zuko didn't feel much anymore. He was numb to everything around him; it was his way of coping. He wasn't like the other assassins in the Wraith, the ones who enjoyed killing people, the men who would kill for the fun of it, not because they had to.

During his first few months with the Wraith, all Zuko had felt was horror and self-loathing. He could barely think about killing people for money, and the only way he did was because he knew if he didn't, he would die himself. He could never bring himself to watch though; he always closed his eyes when he slit someone's throat or shoved a blade in their back.

But now, Zuko didn't care. He didn't like killing people, he wished he didn't have to, but he didn't worry himself over it. He felt little when it was time to do a job, felt hardly any remorse when he opened a man's throat and watched him bleed.

When he let himself think about it, Zuko _was _disturbed by the fact that he was a murderer, that it was his hand that ended so many lives. The actual act of murder was bad, but the title Zuko had awarded himself was worse. It was something he could never shake off, and it made him sick to his stomach when he thought about it; so he didn't think about it, instead choosing to numb himself to everything around him, to just not think, to just do. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to handle it all.

Zuko stretched, throwing his arms over his head. He thought about the people he saw hanging around Sho Tin's place earlier. Something about them was so familiar; Zuko had to have known them from somewhere.

It bothered him, that he couldn't place it. It bothered him that he didn't know; he didn't particularly care, but he just hated the feeling that he had lost something important. The memory, the knowledge of it was on the tip of his tongue, tantalizing, and if he could just _remember_.

The Avatar. That was who he saw, the Avatar and his little group. Zuko made an inarticulate sound in the dark. How had he not recognized them immediately? But then again, Zuko hadn't seen those kids in years, let alone heard their voices, which had changed with puberty.

If only they had come to Ba Sing Se two years ago. Then, Zuko would have recognized them, and hopefully captured them, or at least followed them out of the city. Maybe his banishment would have ended and he would be lying in a bed in the Fire Nation rather than the Earth Kingdom. But no, they hadn't, and now everything was different.

Zuko had realized a long time ago that capturing the Avatar wouldn't make his life go back to what it was before he was banished. It would have made it better, perhaps, since he would be at home in the Fire Nation, with his title and birthright intact, but it wouldn't have given him his father's love or acceptance. It would have restored his honor in his father's eyes, but it wouldn't have made Zuko happy.

Now Zuko could never go back to the Fire Nation; he was part of the Wraith – hardly an acceptable pastime for a prince.

Zuko did wonder what the Avatar and his friends were doing in the Ba Sing Se though. The Dai Li didn't really work with the Fire Nation, but they would have no qualms about handing the Avatar to them if word got out that he was here. It was dangerous for them to be anywhere near the Dai Li.

But it wasn't Zuko's problem. He didn't care about the Avatar anymore. All he cared about was keeping himself alive and out of the Dai Li's hands.

* * *

For the next couple weeks, Zuko's life was normal. He worked in the tea shop during the day and during the night, he did his best to find Sho Tin's thief.

Sho Tin found a new building to establish as a brothel and double as stronghold for the Wraith. Zuko only visited the new building once, to get his money for the last job. While there, Sho Tin gave him a list of suspects for Zuko to stalk through the streets of Ba Sing Se.

Zuko was working the kitchen when they came in. He heard the shrill ringing of the bell and winced at the obnoxious sound. Zuko glanced up, preparing to welcome the customers, as he was supposed to, and froze. The Avatar and the Water Tribe peasant girl - Zuko couldn't remember her name - had just walked in.

Zuko swore under his breath, wondering why they were still in Ba Sing Se, why they had to come into_ this_ tea shop.

Zuko thanked Agni he wasn't serving that day. They wouldn't see him in the kitchen, dutifully making tea, not if they kept their eyes to their plates. Hopefully they would leave, not even noticing the man they believed to be the enemy was behind the counter.

Zuko wondered for a second whether or not the Avatar actually still considered Zuko their enemy – they hadn't seen him in years. But still, Zuko was Fire Nation, at least by birth, and therefore hated by everyone.

Zuko ducked his head, using his shaggy hair to hide his eyes and scar while he watched them sit down. He frowned as he considered them. The boy Avatar had definitely grown in the past two years. Instead of a scrawny child, he was a lanky teenager, with long limbs and shoulders that looked too broad for his skinny chest. He was taller, less rounded in the face, and with brown hair completely covering the blue airbender tattoo on his head. He may have grown, but he still retained the wide-eyed look of innocence to him, something, Zuko assumed, he would never let go of.

The girl next to him had also grown, and for the better, Zuko thought. No longer a girl, but a woman with a face that was no longer round with adolescence, and her figure fuller, with wider hips and an ample chest. Her bright blue eyes no longer looked like they overwhelmed her face, and her hair was long, falling down her back in waves. She smiled at the young Avatar, her full pink lips curving into a sultry smile.

Zuko scowled down at his pot. Why did they have to come to this shop? There were hundreds in Ba Sing Se, and plenty to choose from in the Lower Ring. Not that they had any reason been here – Zuko would have thought the Avatar would have merited enough importance to have his own villa in the Upper Ring, not to be forced to squabble with the lowlifes.

Zuko's thoughts were interrupted when the waiter slammed the orders down on the counter. Zuko glared at his back as he walked away without a word before turning back to the kitchen. Zuko concentrated his attention on the pot and not indulging in the temptation to set the rude waiter's apron on fire or the urge to run out of the shop before he was noticed.

Zuko was leaning, his arms crossed, against the counter, waiting for his next order and watching the customers, when the waterbender looked up, and straight into his eyes. Zuko had just been absently staring around, his mind elsewhere, when he was struck back into reality as her bright blue eyes locked onto his.

Dammit.

Unsure what to do, he held onto her gaze while her vivid eyes widened in recognition and then disbelief. He watched with quiet horror as her face darkened and she turned to the Avatar, saying something he couldn't hear, but assumed wasn't very kind to him.

The young boy looked around, his wide grey eyes landing on Zuko. He looked confused before scowling, one hand reaching for the long staff he had leaned against the table.

Zuko spun around, making a point of showing them his back, and reached up to grab a pack of tea leaves, pretending nonchalance. He could feel that annoying peasant's eyes boring into his back. He busied himself with the tea, absently wondering how people actually drank his brew, knowing how awful it was.

Zuko put the pot over the fire and grabbed a trash bag and dragged it out of the kitchen and out behind the shot. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of rotting food and mold. He dumped the bag next to the can and dusted his hands off on his apron.

Zuko straightened and looked at the woman standing behind him, who had followed him out of the shop. She was standing, arms crossed and glaring. "Yes?" he asked her politely. She only glared harder.

"What are you doing here?" she asked heatedly.

"I was taking out the trash."

Her blue eyes widened at his calm tone before narrowing again. "I meant, why are you in Ba Sing Se?"

"Isn't this where most refugees go?" Zuko asked drily.

"You're not a refugee," she hissed. "You're Fire Nation!"

Zuko blinked at her venomous tone and glowered at her. "That doesn't mean I can't be a refugee."

"Who would you have to run? From your own father?" she scoffed.

"Don't ask questions you don't understand, little girl," Zuko said coldly.

The waterbender made an indignant noise. "I'm not a little girl."

"You're acting like one."

She dropped her arms to her sides, her hands clenched into fists. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't report you to the Dai Li right now."

Zuko reached out grabbed her arm, yanking her forward. He pushed her back against the rough wall of the tea shop and held her wrists above her head. He glared into her bright eyes, eyes that glared right back. "You'll regret it if you do," he snarled.

"Why," she growled back at him," would I regret it?"

"I'd make you regret it," he hissed icily.

"And how would you do that? You'd be in jail."

Zuko pushed her arms up roughly, and she gasped in pain, the smug look on her face washing away instantly. Zuko leaned close, his expression fierce. "Don't even try me, girl," he said softly.

The girl stared at him, her eyes widening at her tone, catching the danger in it. Zuko let go of her wrists and stepped back, watching her rub the already forming bruises. He turned and went back into the kitchen without a backwards glance at her.


End file.
